mixed-era mastery from wary meyers in portland, maine

Photography by LAURE JOLIET photography by LAURE JOLIET written by SARAH COFFEY In Portland, Maine, soap and candle makers Linda and John Meyers of Wary Meyers lead an inspired life full of family, color, and fun.

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In Portland, Maine, soap and candle makers Linda and John Meyers of Wary Meyers lead an inspired life full of family, color, and fun.

Photography by LAURE JOLIET

The house is filled with John’s abstract artworks. “I love hard-edged painting,” he says. “People like Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella—I’m obsessed with that two-dimensional graphic stripe, and you see it in our soaps.”

“WE’RE OBVIOUSLY A LITTLE DIFFERENT

than your typical family,” says Linda Meyers. How many other couples would buy a house with an adjacent hair salon, then convert it into a soap and candle making workshop? For Linda, her husband, John, and their 6-year-old son, Fletcher, it makes perfect sense. With its 1958 architecture and 1980s updates—including said hair salon, an atrium, a kitchen addition, and a pool—the house is a twofer: modernism and postmodernism in one tidy package.

The soap came from their desire to work from home and evolve their longtime design collaboration. The couple formerly worked as an interior design duo in Brooklyn, outfitting apartments in their signature bohemian-graphic style. “When we did interiors, we’d always buy a candle or soap for our client,” says Linda.

Photography by LAURE JOLIET

“This house came with white wall-to-wall carpet,” says Linda. “It’s comfortable and our son loves it. We’re a white-wine-and-no-shoes house. I want to bring back the art of wall-to-wall carpet—the perfect pile.”

The transition took time. “It took us about eight months to get the soaps right and a year for the candles,” Linda explains. “The striped soaps are poured in layers, so if you have five stripes, you’re really making five soaps—it’s very time-consuming.” John adds, “It’s like cooking or baking—you’ve got to master the exact amount of ingredients, proportion, temperature, and timing.” Names like Esprit de Peach Soap and Hippie Hollow Candle hint at the couple’s effervescent energy. They find new ideas just hanging out at home. “We have these late-’60s plastic Massimo Vignelli plates and bowls in Pop colors that look really great stacked,” John says. “So, one day, Linda noticed it and made it into a soap.” “Our life is our brand,” says Linda. “I can’t believe we get to live and work here. Never in a trillion years would I imagine having a house like this. It’s all ours. We have complete freedom of creativity. What more could we want?”

Photography by LAURE JOLIETPhotography by LAURE JOLIETPhotography by LAURE JOLIETPhotography by LAURE JOLIET

The previous owners, a hair stylist and a piano tuner, gave the house its current configuration. “They did a great job putting an ’80s addition onto a ’50s ranch house,” says John. “It’s so perfect for us.”

WARY MEYERS ON HOW TO GET THE BEST OF EVERY ERA

’60s

’70s

“Bohemian hippie style is great,” Linda says, “but I really love the way wicker peacock chairs or Pucci towels look in a modern all-white house.”

’80s

“Less is more with the ’80s,” John says. “Look on eBay for one iconographic design piece from Esprit, Swatch, or Memphis.”

Photography by LAURE JOLIET

Fletcher sports a storm trooper mask in the living room. “We’re a Star Wars family,” John says. “Linda’s dad found the life-size nude painting in our dining room at a yard sale. It’s by Alex Tavoularis, who did the storyboards for the original Star Wars movies. To me, it’s part of history.”

Photography by LAURE JOLIET

WE FIND IDEAS EVERYWHERE: FURNITURE DESIGN, PAINTINGS, OBJECTS, AND JUST ANYTHING WE LIKE.

—JOHN MEYERS

Photography by LAURE JOLIETPhotography by LAURE JOLIET

WARY MEYERS INSPIRED SCENT & COLOR CONCEPTS

Pink Champagne

“It took me months to get the perfect pink spectrum,” says Linda. “It had to be transpar-ent, and I wanted it to feel effervescent, like champagne.”

Lavender Lemongrass

“I wanted a really vivid purple and blue Marimekko-style colorway,” Linda says, “but I couldn’t match it to a scent. I finally came up with lavender lemongrass, and it clicked.”

Mosaic Terrazzo

“The late Japanese designer Shiro Kuramata made an amazing line of terrazzo furniture for the Esprit House in Tokyo,” John says. “Our mosaic soap is a take on that.”

Grapefruit Clementine

“We’re constantly soaking up inspiration,” says Linda. “One day I saw a sunset that I wanted to translate into a transparent soap. It became grapefruit and clementine.”

Lemon Verbena

“It’s tricky,” Linda says. “You don’t want to be too literal about scent. We have a red, white, and blue soap that’s lemon scented, because I associate those colors with summer and lemon ices.”